ve myself from falling, for, being alone with Nature at last, I was
seeing my flight for the first time in full light.

I was telling myself that as surely as my flight became known Martin's
name would be linked with mine, and the honour that was dearer to me
than, my own would be buried in disgrace.

O God! O God! Why should Nature be so hard and cruel to a woman? Why
should it be permitted that, having done no worse than obey the purest
impulses of my heart, the iron law of my sex should rise up to condemn
both me and the one who was dearer to my soul than life itself?

I hardly know how long I stood there, holding on to that rope. There was
no sound now except the tread of a sailor in his heavy boots, an
inarticulate call from the bridge, an answering shout from the wheel,
the rattling of the wind in the rigging, the throbbing of the engine in
the bowels of the ship, and the monotonous wash of the waves against her
side.

Oh, how little I felt, how weak, how helpless!

I looked up towards the sky, but there seemed to be no sky, no moon, and
no stars, only a vaporous blackness that came down and closed about me.

I looked out to the sea, but there seemed to be no sea, only a hissing
splash of green spray where the steamer's forward light fell on the
water which her bow was pitching up, and beyond that nothing but a
threatening and thundering void.

I did not weep, but I felt as other women had felt before me, as other
women have felt since, as women must always feel after they have sinned
against the world and the world's law, that there was nothing before me
but the blackness of night.

"Out of the depths I cry unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my cry."

But all at once a blessed thought came to me. We were travelling
eastward, and dark as the night was now, in a few hours the day would
dawn, the sun would shine in our faces and the sky would smile over our
heads!

It would be like that with me. Martin would come back. I was only going
to meet him. It was dark midnight with me now, but I was sailing into
the sunrise!

Perhaps I was like a child, but I think that comforted me.

At all events I went down to the little triangular cabin with a cheerful
heart, forgetting that I was a runaway, a homeless wanderer, an outcast,
with nothing before me but the wilderness of London where I should be
friendless and alone.

The fire had gone out by this time, the oil-lamp was swinging to the
motion of the ship, the ti